With the season on the line, Tim Thomas isn’t worried about one bad game

Posted By
Mike Petraglia
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April 22, 2012 @ 9:29 am
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If there were ever a time to put a sub-par game in the past, today is the day for Tim Thomas[1].

It’s Game 6 in Washington, D.C. and Thomas is focused on keeping his Bruins in the Stanley Cup[2] playoffs.

As for Saturday’s Game 5, sure there are a couple of shots he’d like to have back but has he said afterward, you can’t turn back the clock and get another chance to make a save.

Asked if he could’ve done a better job handling the rebound that led to Mike Knuble‘s goal to make it 3-2 or Troy Brouwer‘s game-winner on the power play, Thomas was philosophical.

“I don’t look at things like that exactly,” Thomas said. “The third goal I wish I could have controlled the rebound better, and then the last goal he fooled me and beat me clean. He’s coming down with a lot of speed and he shot and I read that the shot was going lower. And by the time I even realized that the shot was going that high, I didn’t even have time to raise my hand.”

Pressed more about Knuble’s goal on the shot by Joel Ward, Thomas became almost defiant.

“No, I mean, in a perfect world yes. But it was to the right leg, it was to the far leg, it was on the ice, it was just slow enough that I couldn’t get the momentum to the puck, to get the puck all the way into the far corner,” Thomas explained. “I think actually I was going to put the rebound more towards the middle like I do sometimes to give to one of my guys, but I read that one of our guys was there and I didn’t want it to go off his shin pad and in. Unfortunately it just happened to land right on the Washington guy’s stick.”

Then there was the second Caps goal, when Thomas got a piece of Jay Beagle‘s shot from the left circle, but had it trickle behind him to put Washington up, 2-0.

“We had to get ourselves going here, especially after that second goal that we gave up,” Bruins coach Claude Julien[3] said. “It was, to me it was a poor goal to give up on our part ‘ so a little wakeup call and gave us some energy and then the guys responded.”

But unlike Julien, who was fairly irate that a playoff game would come down to a questionable slash call on Benoit Pouliot, Thomas would not use the officials as an out.

“That’s hockey, right? There’s a lot of things that happen over the course of the series that change the outcome in the end, and that was one of them. But the outcome of this series isn’t over, so we’ll see if it ends up making a difference or not,” Thomas said.

Thomas is the guy you want in net because of his skill and his attitude, both of which he showed time and time again in 2011 as the Conn Smythe winner.

“It’s good to know that we’ve been in tough spots before and responded well,” Thomas said. “Having said that, we got to do that. You got to bring it and do it. It isn’t, it’s not going to be for granted that we’re going to do it. It’s up to us in this room.”

Will today’s 24-hour turnaround be a good thing for the Bruins?

“I don’t know,” Thomas said. “Well sure. I guess. It doesn’t matter, win or lose, the time periods between games, I think you guys put more thought into that than we do. Basically knowing that we’ve been in these types of situations and responded well in the past can help to build confidence as a group, that we have what it takes to come back and do what we’re going to need to do to win this series if we want to move on. But having said that, it’s up to us to do it, not just to know that we’ve done it before. So don’t think it’s just going to happen. We’re going to have to reach down deep inside of ourselves and find a way.”

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